My Protestant roots

In the first two weeks of my classes, we've been talking a lot about personal histories and about the roots of several different religions. Today I was listening to classmates embodying women they interviewed about faith. I found myself surprised at how "other" I still find experience of Catholic women, even though I've been exposed to Catholic theology for years. I think it's that on a personal level, I'm the child of generations and generations of Protestants.

My father's family was Episcopalian by the time I was born, and most of the family had been Episcopalian (Anglican) or Methodist for at least 200 years. At least one part of my father's family was Mennonite when they came to America in the 1700's, but family lore is that they converted to being Episcopalian because it was "more socially upwardly mobile." By the time I was a child, being Episcopal was more about social standing and appearance than any sort of faith. Even though we lived less than a block from church, my family largely attended only forChristmas and Easter, though they expected me to attend confirmation classes and be confirmed when I was 13.

My mother's family were (and are) Southern Baptist, with a few more conservative independent evangelicals every now and then. On that side of the family, too, church participation was in part about social context -- everyone we knew attended church, all the family members and friends, and failure to do so was noticed and commented on. People didn't socialize or do business with the unchurched. In that context, it's considered socially acceptable to ask about church attendance and Christian belief in casual conversation, and church and God references permeated daily life constantly. For example, school events began with prayers lead by students or local pastors -- at football games, the entire crowd would pray together before the game started that God would lead and protect the players, and perhaps touch the lives of the fans while they watched the game.

My mother is a special case. She's moved through religious identities repeatedly in my lifetime. She was brought up as a Southern Baptist and remained that until I was 6 or 7 years old. At that point, we moved from the south to the small town where my father had grown up. My mother sent me to sunday school at a Baptist church for a while. I remember almost nothing about it, except singing songs on the church bus that took me there. Eventually, we moved to live very close to the Episcopal church in town where I had been christened as a baby. My mother started attending with me and had me confirmed there. That said, on major holidays we would frequently go to a second service at the Methodist church a few more blocks away, because they had better music and played the "right" hymns on those holidays -- hymns more like the Baptist ones.

Later, my parents divorced, and my mother eventually met her second husband. He was a Mormon. My mother converted to his faith, so that they could have their marriage sealed in the temple. For several years, my mother was a very good Mormon. She gave up caffeine, became Relief Society President, brought me to services. I think she still identifies as Mormon, but is no longer actively practicing. She also is at least aware of feminist/goddess spirituality, because she mentions it to me from time to time.

So, that's me -- mainstream Protestant on both sides of the family, for generations.